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Explore how the social construct of race and racial oppression operates at multiple levels with a rotating focus on different social systems. Connect with Austin-area justice movement organizers and everyday people with relevant lived experience to lay out historical context, current affairs, and creative possibilities for a liberated future.
Greetings, co op listeners. Welcome to this week's reflection of community outreach, a program that gives voice to coop community organization members as well as local folks doing great things in our larger community. The views expressed here in this program are not necessarily those of the coop board of directors, staff, volunteers, or underwriters. My name is Stacey Frazier, aka dj Stay Fray. Pronouns are she and they.
Speaker 1:I am a white, 42 years old, 5th gen Texan, upper middle class, queer, mother, spouse, daughter, and sister on a journey of joy and a path towards freedom. My livelihood is racial equity facilitation and organizational culture consulting. And over the next hour, I am in conversation with the magnificent Kedada of Riders Against the Storm. Keep passing the mic to you to intro yourself and what you've been up to.
Speaker 2:Hello, friends. It has been a pleasure to serve the community in the capacity that I have for all the years that I have here in Austin, Texas. We've been here for about 12 years. And, Shaka and I are the 2 members of Riders Against the Storm, hip hop duo here who has, won band of the year 3 years in a row, has established a variety of spaces, intersectional spaces here in Austin, Body Rock ATX. Shaka has his Dahua, nonprofit that supports people of color that are on the front lines in emergency situations, and then all the other creative activity that we do.
Speaker 2:I personally am, very much committed to the ethereal space and internal space of human beings. And my work, outside of my art, although it is also artistic, is coaching and facilitating, particularly for a variety of people in the community. But right now, I'm focused on black women and what it means for them to stabilize energetic hemorrhaging, that they are prone to in a culture that really has trained them to give them to give more than necessary. And so, I also facilitate a program, for white identified people, in a space that is not people, in a space that is not necessarily constructed or offered to white identify people, which can be a little controversial, because I'm actually holding space for white folks. That's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And and that can that that's not something people get necessarily. Why?
Speaker 1:Well, we're gonna dive in right now to that and that is the good segue because, first and foremost, we heard, Flowers for the Living from Riders Against the Storm at the top of the of the show. One of my favorites of y'all's. And, you know, I our journeys today have converged in that I am really focused on anti racism work, at all levels of racism, In my own learning journey in the past few years, I started diving into my psyche, my body, somatic, somatic abolitionism. And so key is I I see myself as a bridge to bring this to my fellow white bodied folk who may not even know what we're talking about yet. So let's unpack it a little bit.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:You know, I I meant I'm kind of like the the spiritual industry is a place that in and of itself is very racist. And it's supposed to be a space that is is is designed for liberation and internal awareness and connecting to spaces beyond yourself. But in and of itself, it's a very racist place. Anytime when you're, like, telling people if you speak about racism, you are stuck in some sort of limitation, even though the majority of the industry is ran by and orchestrated by white males. Even though when they talk about new earth, like the voices talking about new earth are white males.
Speaker 2:I'm like, that sounds like the old earth to me. But, you know, that doesn't sound like a a shift in paradigm. Maybe you're not as much of a jerk, if if that's what you're I don't know what you're saying. And I think that's the whole thing. Like, I I don't like the bypassing.
Speaker 2:I want to know what you're saying. I want to know what you feel. I want to know why you're uptight. I want to I want to know why you're trying to move past it so so much. Because I feel like you you have to be baptized by fire.
Speaker 2:You need to be refined by fire. And so you have to sit in the discomfort in order to actually transform what is at the root and also, strengthen your character and strengthen your spirit, so that you know and not not lean into the conveniences, you the construct that has been laid before you offers you. And in the program that I've walked many white identified people through, the truth telling of whiteness program that have walked many white identified people or a group of white identified people through, I I I I encourage the discomfort. I want you to say the wrong thing. You know, I don't want you to be trained to say the right thing.
Speaker 2:I want you to say the wrong thing, whatever that is. I need to hear your story. I want you to have a space where, where your reality is seen and validated. You know, there are people who grew up in very racist households, and they have had to transform, transmute that as much as possible, but there is a a grand shame and trauma that exists in that. And then there are people who may not have confront may have lived in a very liberal household, But the truth of the matter is the society is constructed in a format that allows you to operate in a particular function and it may have taken you a second to confront that.
Speaker 2:It may have you may have designed safety barriers for yourself within that, etcetera. So there's so much regardless of the political station that you've occupied or grew up in, the construct we exist in altogether requires deep evaluation. And then also the main point is that, white identified people are looking at, themselves. Oftentimes, a lot of anti racist work is looking at the system and then looking at what people of color, black people, and people of color have endured under racism. And I have to make that clear distinction because oftentimes we talk about people of color and we put black experience in it, and the black experience is not necessarily experience of people of color.
Speaker 2:That's a convenience for white identified people to be like people of color. Everybody. Right? So that we can just put everyone in a bucket and I can just, like, funnel the the funds to you and y'all can figure that out. So you the black experience is specifically the black American experience is specifically those who have been in bondage for several 100 years here.
Speaker 2:That also includes sectors of the First Nation community and, then also having your identity stripped from you, your religion stripped from you, your name stripped from you. And one of the exercises, for example, I do with the white identified people is, like, I need you to walk through the day and every black person's name that you speak, you have to understand that that was a name that was beaten into them. Like, that's reality. That's and and it has not been unbeaten out. Like, it's it's a it's a it's something that people have to walk around at any, you know, person of, Latinx heritage or any black person that has a European name on them, like, someone that that was that was coerced and and done so out of brutality.
Speaker 2:That's not their name. And so there's there's about making sure that you're, dealing with that in a refreshed manner and and taking that in. So that's part of the work. I'm not into political work. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2:I think Shaka and I do good things in tandem. He's very much committed to the political aspects of things and also the spiritual aspects of things. But my work is more of the internal, TikTok, if you will. I know that word has been now it now I mean something else. But this the internal clockwork
Speaker 3:There you
Speaker 2:go. The internal clockwork of of, of what what identified people endure and embrace internally. Yeah. Thank you.
Speaker 1:You know, you said you hit it when you said, you know, relax, pause, breathe. You didn't say those exact words, but I felt that from you. And I know as a white body person, for the listeners, I have one hand on my heart and one hand on my stomach right now and I took a deep breath as I was listening to you, Ki, because this is heavy. Mhmm. It's heavy.
Speaker 1:Everybody's carrying around some heaviness. Mhmm. Can't compare it to the 400 years of heaviness that the African diaspora to the Americans that were enslaved here do. Yeah. I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:And I and I my whole thing is is that heaviness is it's it's difficult touchy little space. But that heaviness is connected to the 400 years of of brutality against. It's the other side of it. And so that heaviness, I encourage white identified people to actually register the other side of the coin of that heaviness. It's not that it's incomparable, it's the other side of the coin.
Speaker 2:Because the 400 years of brutality against people of color turned you into what? And that's the question. Mhmm. So you are also in bondage. Like, I think white identified people don't register that they're they're not taught that they've been in bondage emotionally, psychologically, etcetera.
Speaker 2:And so the program is to what I walk, what identify people through is the the reality. You know, I'll put it this way. There's a photo, a very popular photo. Most people have seen lynching photos of of of black people being lynched in the south and etcetera. But I'm like, let's not look at the figure being lynched.
Speaker 2:Let's look at the little girl in the picture that's looking up smiling and her community is like, Yeah. This is good for you. What did what did 400 years of being able to do whatever you want to somebody's body, what does that turn you into? I don't care if you lynched directly or not. That permission was given to you somewhere.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And what does that that gaze that how does that work out in your mind? So I've been in a lot of healing circles, Chad. So I've been in healing circles with First Nation people, Latinx, Latine. There's so many different ways to see that, and that's another brilliant conversation.
Speaker 2:And also with black African American, afro descendant people. And they're all looking at themselves like, god. How did we get here? How did we get here? Why do I feel this way?
Speaker 2:What has made me what has made me, what are the pathologies that are having me operate that I'm unaware of? Right? So I haven't been in many I've been in anti racist groups, like, working through anti racism, ending abolishing racism, abolishing all of that. And I still have not encountered the work that I see other groups doing, because they the the the the axe the the adage is that racism is something that has been imposed on people of color, and it doesn't affect white people in the same way. And it does.
Speaker 2:It absolutely does. And if white folks it's like Toni Morrison said in her interview with with Pete Rose, if white people don't see it as a as as their problem, if they don't understand that they have a problem, you know, it's a this is a very, it's a it's a very, very deep what's the word I wanna use? It's the the the psyche is is meshed in a way that is it's hard to grasp. It's it's a it's a bit elusive because it is it's so what's the word I wanna use? It's coming to me.
Speaker 2:It's so narcissistic. It's so narcissistic. It's the training is narcissistic. And even in the best efforts, it's still very external. Like, we're gonna solve that problem out there.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. You know, racism about solving this problem out there. And I've seen so many white identified people go into communities of color, for example, and, like, help the poor black kids or set up nonprofits for the poor black kids. I'm like, y'all need to create programs programs. And perhaps it should be led by black people or people of color, but there needs to be programs that help white identified children in their communities understand what has the pathology and the and the grief that they're carrying and and has been passed on to them and why.
Speaker 2:You know, that's that's my whole thing. It's just like it's still it's still evangelical attitude. Mhmm. This this need to end racism can still it's not necessarily in a religious format, but it's very much still the secular type of missionary work.
Speaker 1:It is. And I've I've actually running in these circles too. In some of these circles, it's it's it's performance. It's gratifying. It's, you know, surface level.
Speaker 1:It's socialization. It's all of the things. Right? But, when I really turned a corner, it was when I started to it clicked. It clicked that I am so committed to ending racism because I am being duped.
Speaker 1:I am doing this to be free. That's right. This is a system of oppression that must have racism in place in order for it to continue to be propped up. And I being, you know, taking someone like with the primary immune deficiency like myself, like, this system isn't set up for me either. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So if you have any subjugated identity at all, tap into that and be angry, frankly, that the system of oppression isn't working for anybody. Right. And and I I I encourage that we even use use use a bit of recess to the word, to the systemic language, right? Use a bit of recess to the systemic language and encourage people to say, specifically speak for yourself, like, specifically say I'm not well. Use very simple language and use very, language pointed back to the self.
Speaker 2:Like, I'm not well. Like, black people, I've like, my personal I share my personal journey with with the groups that I've worked with, because I'm like, I had to say I'm not well. Not the system is that language shows up, but the the work doesn't really happen until I say I'm not well. I don't know why I'm processing my hair. I don't know what my name is.
Speaker 2:I don't know who I am. And then you go into turmoil. And I feel like white identified people, anger, yes, but, absolutely, it's that turmoil, of being like, I actually don't know who I am. I can't I can't actually think that the way we've portrayed ourself and and set ourselves up and the brutality that been that we've one way or another, we've opted into this. And I think that's a conversation that's really hard for white identified people to understand is that you opted into this.
Speaker 2:Everyone opted into this Mhmm. One way or another. And that that journey out of it is through it. And, you know, out of it is is is first looking directly at yourself and being honest about whether or not you're sick. You can't get well unless you tell yourself you're sick.
Speaker 2:And so you let yourself know you're sick. And so, we can we can start to get into the weeds and we can start to again angle it into a, into the external, registration, registering it externally, when we when we, just get away from when we get into collegiate language. You have to just keep it real simple. Like, I've had people in my group and it was beautiful. She was like, you know, the most open conversations is, white identified woman.
Speaker 2:It's like the most open conversations I've had about race were with uneducated, poor white folks, actually.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. It is such a defense mechanism and deflection tactic that I, with awareness, now see myself going into, which I just did 3 minutes ago.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:When I get heady about it Mhmm. And I disembody and I'm doing 80% my head, 20% my body, I see it. I I now I can recognize when I'm doing it.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:That's part of that healing path. Yeah. I appreciate you lifting
Speaker 2:that up. Yeah. It's important, it's important because, the intellect, you know, like you're saying, can decapitate you, and, remove us from the experience. Right? There's so much for us to take into consideration about the molecular structure in ourselves.
Speaker 2:Right? And how that, permeates and how we react and what white identified people have been trained to do physically. I think that is very important. The same way black people have been trained physically to, at times, to not be too big, to not talk a certain way in front of white folks, to change the tone of your voice when you are on the phone so that you can get better service and all these different things that your body tells you to do in automation or sometimes consciously so that you can get through. And and white identified people do it.
Speaker 2:They don't do it the way black people have to, people of color have to, but white identified people do it. And, and it's not just about me with my theories about it. It's about getting white I've been identified people to sit with it and tell me what's happening. What's that what is that tension stemming from? Why are you going into your head?
Speaker 2:Why why can't you find language? What is that? You know? And not just be, like, it's because you're white. Okay.
Speaker 2:Cool. There's more to you as a person, as a being, and your triggers in your function. You need to get to that. Otherwise, it's I don't really know what we're doing. I don't really know what we're doing.
Speaker 2:You know? And that's important to me to know why my body is doing that, why my mind is deflecting, why am I losing sight of my freedom?
Speaker 1:You know,
Speaker 2:I think white folks need to see it that way, like you're losing sight of your own freedom.
Speaker 1:So I want to pause for some station announcements on that break and the word freedom, and we'll come back in a few minutes. Awesome.
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Speaker 1:Welcome back y'all. You're listening to Reflections on Community Outreach. My in touch interview with Key of Kedata Life, Riders Against the Storm, coach, artist, extraordinaire, teacher guide, all the things. And recently, mama. Yay.
Speaker 1:My little baby. Air 5 mama. Mamas unite.
Speaker 2:To mamas unite. That's right. Ma'am.
Speaker 1:That's, you know, I know that's a lot why I'm sitting here at this table too. Yeah. For myself and it's for the future generations. Get them going.
Speaker 2:That's right. I was recently talked someone asked me if I played chess and Shaka was asking, like, what's the strategy? What's your strategy? He's like, you gotta think 7 steps ahead to win at chess. Right?
Speaker 2:I'm like, my brain. But if you say to me you have to think several generations ahead, I totally get it. Yep. And that's what it
Speaker 1:is. Yeah. I get that. And I've been spending a lot of time thinking backwards. Right?
Speaker 1:It's part of my my journey and I'm listening. I'm listening and, you know, I didn't really have a lot of interest in genealogy until the past couple of years.
Speaker 2:And when I realized in this anti racist personal work how important it is to know your ancestry, You were talking about loss and the cultural traditions of my ancestors have been lost too, right? The joy has been stripped away of the cultural traditions. And so, you know, so that is a journey of joy. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And it's interesting too because one of the key components to the true telling of whiteness that I walk folks through is, ancestral work. But for people of color and I feel like that actually was a part of, European heritage. But confusion about ancestral work and that being we're talking about lineage, right? And there is a lack of understanding or there is, again, stuff has been taken away from you 2 in the sense that that's what Halloween was. It's like we did ancestral veneration, right?
Speaker 2:We honored our ancestors that weren't necessarily a part of our lineage but that were a part of our that's a part of our community. They're a part of our community still, right? And And not necessarily the people that were directly a part of my lineage, but it it could be a a friend that was passed. It could be, you know, a, a mentor, that has transitioned. All of those people are part of your ancestry in in a, spiritual sense, in an afro spiritual sense for sure, you know, in a spiritual sense.
Speaker 2:So that's something that we break down and then we also talk about what does it mean to confront the works of your ancestors. What does it mean to deal with, the harsh reality of what what your ancestors did, and what does it mean to untether yourself from that? And the only way to actually do that is to confront it.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:So that you can dislodge what that is. And oftentimes, the pushback will be, well, my ancestors didn't own land, my ancestors came here in 18/24, I mean, came here in 1924, you know, all of those different things. I'm
Speaker 1:like, yeah.
Speaker 2:I hear you.
Speaker 1:Okay. Comma and.
Speaker 2:And the comma and.
Speaker 1:Well well, I would say on that one is that, you know, I didn't know that I had ancestors in this now country who enslaved people
Speaker 2:that was never Never spoken.
Speaker 1:Wrought. That's right. And I've now found that 2, possibly 3 of the 4 sides did talk about how people are saying, well, I came blah blah. They may not even know y'all. Y'all may not even really know the truth until you start looking for the truth.
Speaker 2:That's big. That's big. And then your your ancestors made out of own slaves that they may have been overseers. They may have funded it. You know, there's a wonderful documentary that we go through in the program where we talk about, this wonderful documentary called traces of the trade.
Speaker 2:And so many people don't know, Providence, Rhode Island was actually one of the biggest slave ports in the country. Right? And so there was a family specifically who owned a bank, who owned the insurance company, who had a tradition. She just knew her parents were boaters or whatever, but they shipped. They're a big part of the the the my office people call it the, which is translates into the black holocaust, the African holocaust.
Speaker 2:And so many people have, like, we need to start calling it the African holocaust instead of the slave trade because it wasn't about business, right, fully. And even in that, like, you see and that's what I'm saying. Like, you'll see I've seen so many pieces of work from people in Benin and other African scholars who apologize for their part in it. And it's still like a very difficult conversation for European people because of the way society sets things up for you. To not feel like it because it's narcissistic, to not feel like of an apology is necessary, not in a personal level.
Speaker 2:And I'm not even talking about, like, going up to every black person you see and be like, oh, I'm sorry. I'm like, you better get out my face. Get out my space, man. It's it's it's that's about validating yourself. It's about your your heart and forgiving what has been put on your heart about this in a very real way.
Speaker 2:And but there is no practice for white identity. There is no process. There is psych there you can go to you can go and get psychology for your limitations around money. You can go to therapist for your limitations around money. You can get a therapist for, sexual abuse.
Speaker 2:You can go get therapy for your marriage. You can go get therapy as a child. You there's no psychological setup for the repair of white identified people. That should tell you a lot about how how how okay it is to walk around tormented as a white identified person.
Speaker 1:You keep tempting me to go into the systemic.
Speaker 3:It's it's real hard to say about
Speaker 1:it in this moment on the individual.
Speaker 2:I agree. It is it is it is comprised of that. Of course, the system is comprised of that. We're existing in the system. So I don't wanna not talk about the system.
Speaker 2:I encourage it the other way. But let's get into the system. Let's go with me.
Speaker 1:You know, you were talking earlier about ancestry, right, and and honor your ancestors and not just your lineage or your blood lineage but but but that concept of individualism, which is one of the traits of white supremacy culture Yeah. Does not even teach white folks how to be in community and acknowledge others than themselves. And so it is like from the beginning, this individualism, and there is such a deep loneliness about that.
Speaker 2:That comes up a lot in the group, the loneliness, the being sequestered, the the the isolation, the having to stay within a white world, and what that actually does to you. And that's what I mean is, like, it it it because you're not set up to go outside of those boundaries, you you are on a plantation. I think we're about to get it there. Right? Right.
Speaker 2:That's what a plantation is. You are bound. You are bound to a geography. And that geography has not is is yes. It's been removed in the sense that it's not necessarily connected to the earth.
Speaker 2:But there is a psychological geography of boundaries that has been set up particularly for white identify for all people to make this work. But for white identify people, it's not talked about that there is a and maybe it is, maybe it ain't for some people directly, but it it there is a geography that you're not allowed to walk out of, that you're requested to because you have to to maintain the structure, you know?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, Key and I in an earlier conversation off air, we were talking about part of, the truth telling program program that Key runs is to help white people break out of the plantation culture, the plantation mentality and I think that is really intriguing. So let's talk about it a little more. Yeah. Let's expand on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely. So the the only people so black people have a common phrase where they talk about plantation mentality, and and typically that has to do with, you know, being of service to white identified people that then also colorism can come into it, who's the superior person in the workforce here, you know, contemporary times, but who is the superior person on the plantation, etcetera, different things like that. So, my whole thing is, like, black people were not on the plantation alone. White people were also on the plantation.
Speaker 2:So there is a plantation mentality that is not specifically the black focused plantation mentality, but it it is the white version plantation mentality where your first thing that you are conditioned to do is to maintain the structure. That is the first thing you are wake up doing. That is your job. Whether you own it, whether you are a, patroller, whether you are, you know, overseer, etcetera, that the your job is to wake up and maintain the structure. So that attitude is something that it doesn't get unpacked.
Speaker 2:It is not evaluated enough. It's very difficult to find, articles that are specifically about the psychology of white people. It what, there's some controversial people, very controversial because of their stances on, queer reality. But they brought bring up other they bring up points that are very important also, you know. And one of them is, what is her name?
Speaker 2:Doctor. She was a psychologist in Washington DC, and she died about 10 years ago. But, anyway, her her whole career was based off of why do white people behave the way they do? What is their pathology? And she was like, I can't find psycho I can find so much psychology on white folks studying black folks, black folks studying black folks, but who is studying white people and why they behave the way they do and why they refuse to move out of it or why it's been so difficult for them to move out of it.
Speaker 2:And, you know, there's very little response. Again, it's just kind of the narcissistic just like I don't have to respond to that. I don't have to deal with that. I don't have to encourage that whatsoever. And so it's it's it's, Doctor.
Speaker 2:Francis Cress Weltzing. Very controversial. I'm not saying it's not controversial. I'm not saying that Shane said some stuff. I'm like, But, you know, for me, I'm like, I wish I could find somebody where I did not hear them say, you know, I wish I could go through my own life and be like, didn't recall myself and be like, honey.
Speaker 2:So, but what was very valid about her career to me was the fact that she emphasized this question. What who is studying the white mind and the white pathology and what got it here? And because I also emphasize that you're not alone in this. We're all trying to figure out what in the world colonialism did to us and what identify people identify as the colonizers, so there isn't an idea there the the the idea that colonialism was imposed on them too is not necessarily the conversation. It's like you were the colonizer, and this is what colonization and colonizers imposed on people.
Speaker 2:But colonization was an an idea of a small as of of a group of people, including Africans. And so, the difficulty, the barrier for white identified people is like, because you're identified as the colonizer, you don't recognize the colonialism was imposed on you too. Right? Mhmm. Because at the beginning of, you know, this what we can now call the Americas, it wasn't necessarily about race, it's about colonialization.
Speaker 2:Right? And so all people were practicing, not all people, but not only Europeans were practicing colonialization and plantation reality. But there are people here there were Africans who had plantations here, but it was not enslavement. Right? And so what it is is like the white identified and what my teacher one time explained to me, it was like in order to maintain slaves, it was a lot easier to identify who was a slave and who wasn't by their skin color because if you had an indentured servant, it would they could.
Speaker 2:How do I know if you're just walking down the street? You look just like me. Right? It's it's a lot easier to identify. And so the construct of chattel slavery was the technology of that, if you will, was, perfected or I don't have the language for that, but was definitely, the the white folks did it good.
Speaker 2:It was defective. It was defective. Effective and defective. Yeah, they
Speaker 3:they defective, effective. I can't find the language for it. It's it's it's it's a touchy thing. But they they because
Speaker 2:a it's a touchy thing. But they they because they had that and because there was such a okay. The the brutality was so okay. It it's allowed for that. Like, it's it's it's complicated.
Speaker 2:Do you know that the actual, legal precedent for being able to own someone indefinitely, for the rest of their lives was actually set by a black plantation owner. Yeah. It's very complicated. Right? Because this was not about slit it was not about skin color at first.
Speaker 2:This was about colonialization. Yeah. There was a black plantation or he himself was a a indentured servant. And then he was able to buy property, get himself out of indentured servitude, and then he got indentured servants to help him work his land. I forget his name.
Speaker 2:I can maybe get it before the end of the hour. And so I guess someone he had gone out of his contract or looped out of his contract somehow with somebody and they got upset. And he was like, no. He guy owes me more than that. He's been doing this.
Speaker 2:I don't know whatever it was, the details of this case, but it actually set the precedent. And so once that precedent was set, that wasn't about again, that it doesn't make it right. It but it wasn't about skin color. It was about the legal system that was in in place for indentured servitude and then white folks being able to take advantage of that once it got rolling and what they did to maintain it, the brutality that came to be able to maintain it. I'm very much about responsibility.
Speaker 2:I'm very much about black people. Thank you. Anthony Johnson is the name of the the press the the man who owned the plantation, the black man, if you will, that owned the plantation that set that precedent legally. It's a complicated, like, there that's what I'm saying. I look at myself.
Speaker 2:I look at myself. I look at myself as this this thing that's called a black person. I know that's not my my entirety of my identity and my work as an abolitionist in the spiritual sense is to allow us to all of us to go beyond the construct that has been imposed on all of us for 400 years. It is not actually who you are. It is made up, but the reality of what it takes to come out of trauma and to come out of distortion is to confront, is to actually deal with the ugly brash reality that was imposed on you, inflicted on you.
Speaker 2:I don't care what the trauma was. It is about understanding the greater portion of your divinity so that you can exercise that and actually go beyond. That's why I have issue with the, spiritual industry. Like, you cannot actually evolve past that and tell people, and tell people to not confront, to not look at it, to not be uncomfortable. I'm not sitting in a yoga pose with you.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to do it. If that is done just so you can feel some sense of freedom and not actually go through the fire for freedom. Yeah. True freedom. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yes. Practice. That's that's what plantation mentality keeps us locked into. It keeps us all restricted to, an energetic geography, a a a ethereal geography, all of us. And I think white folks need to start to register that they're stuck in an energetic geography that they had their art confines put around their reality and their existence so they don't walk out of it, so they can wake up every day in some form or fashion and maintain the structure.
Speaker 2:You know, and that's what's important. Black people, that's their plantation mentality is working is this offering to, You know, there's maybe maintaining and ours is has been an offering to. And I don't know. There's I could I could go down a rabbit hole with plantation stories and, you know, all of that different reality, and how that even plays a role in things. It's like even, the underground railroad.
Speaker 2:I wrote a I read a book called Vibration Cooking by Verda Mae Grobzner. Love this book. It's a it's a recipe book. You can actually learn to cook rabbit or whatever. This woman was a Geechee lady and, travel notes of the Geechee is a subtext.
Speaker 2:So it's, vibration cooking travel notes of a Geechee girl, by Verde Mae Grovesner. And this woman was awesome and she traveled the world. She, was the caterer for j James Baldwin's funeral. She found Arsenio Hall. She was just like, yeah.
Speaker 2:That boy got talent. I'm going to do something for how to cook. And she knew how to cook, honey. She knew how to cook. She spent time in Paris and learned traditional French cooking and then also, you know, was a historian and connected the quality of her own work, the the quality of the the culinary tradition of her own people.
Speaker 2:But what was really fascinating was each chapter has only one recipe, and the rest of it is a story that incorporates this recipe. Right? And one of the things that she talks about in the book, I gotta read it again, I've read it twice. She talks about how she sat on the porch and listened to her family recall stories of their family and their community. And so she said, I don't understand why the underground railroad gets as much play as it does.
Speaker 2:Right? And that's a very controversial statement. Right? Why is that such an important story? Like, I don't she was like, I don't get it.
Speaker 2:What's the big deal? And so she was basically saying, she said when I was growing up, the stories I heard, there were 2 great stories and I hopefully we have time. If I have time, I wanna tell you these 2 great stories that come from this book. Okay. We got about 15 minutes.
Speaker 2:Okay. I'll keep it short. She talks about the people that just walked off the plantation, did not run. There were no dogs. There was no muscle or whip.
Speaker 2:There was none of that. They got on the main road. They're like, I'm done. They got on the main road and they started walking and when someone would stop them, they'd be like, where are you headed? You're like, you know, he's like, oh, I belong to so and so up the road.
Speaker 2:I was like, well, get. He was like, alright. No problem. And then they would just start walking and they would actually walk on the main roads all the way north. And so hiding in plain sight if you will.
Speaker 2:Right? But the thing was that she emphasized just like, I don't understand why everyone thought these people were so bright. Like, you had to run from them. You had to hide from them. Yeah.
Speaker 2:They weren't that bright. What is this attitude like? They were people to be afraid of. And so the underground railroad still emphasized the superiority of the brutal right man that you had to be mindful of. You have to be careful of.
Speaker 2:You had to hide from, you had to even still like people code switch, you have to hide yourself from this this this this being, this entity in order to make it, in order to survive. And she was like, where I come from, we didn't, we didn't do that. That wasn't called for. That was not what was, that was not the heritage that was passed down to me. And the reason the underground rail, because it, it still holds white people as heroes.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:It's still, they were the abolitionists that helped and supported. And that was wonderful, they did. But the reason that is heralded is the same one as the civil rights move, that's heralded because it showed white people in a good light or they showed it in a powerful light as the brute brutal force. Either way and it's never in a slave story, in a slave film do you just see white folks being idiots. Like they, that's impossible, like they were just a freaking idiots.
Speaker 2:Everybody else is an idiot.
Speaker 3:Right. Everybody's it's some dumb Negro.
Speaker 2:I must you gotta chuck and jive and whatever, and the idea that you're just a dumb idiot, I could just move around. You know, that is the other side of, like, the plantation idea that we that we exist in as people of color and also is, like, that's why you have people in government that are complete idiots, but they they were trained to think that there's nothing I can run anything and
Speaker 1:be a complete idiot. You know that and that extends far in life. Right? Like, so many limitations we're putting on ourselves or maybe they were taught to us, but they really aren't there. They're they're just imaginary constructs of fear.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:100%. Walk away. Just walk away. Walk away. And and it's it's a touchy thing because the person that walked off the plantation had to also understand, like, had to do a lot of processing or some processing or just find something within them.
Speaker 2:Be like, what am I doing? What is this? I'm tired. I'm done. I'm done.
Speaker 2:I'm done. And, you know, like a teacher of mine once said, it's like some of us can click our heels and go home. Like, clearly whoever just walked off the plantation was like click click. I'm I'm out of Oz. I'm done.
Speaker 2:And some of us have to walk through. Yeah. Some of us have to find the courage. Some of us have to find the belief in ourselves and our potential and have to go through the fire and have to confront the evil villain.
Speaker 1:You know, we got 8 minutes remaining. Okay. I, I wanna talk about the possibilities and the the opportunities, right, of the the liberated spirit. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 1:Sure. So a lot of folks aren't talking in my family aren't talking about the spirit too often. Yeah. And that probably doesn't surprise you. But what is the liberated spirit?
Speaker 2:That's such a different quest, right, for each person. Right? If you wanna talk about it in the racialized construct or the the the the deconstruction of racialized reality. I feel like the liberated spirit, is is is so okay in the midst of fear and confrontation. The work has been done and the soul has been soothed.
Speaker 2:I can sit here and I can hear it and know that my ability to do so, is actually what takes me beyond. It's not not hearing it and being like, I'm beyond, so I don't have to hear it. You know, the idea that I'm beyond so I don't have to have this conversation or I don't have to engage, is is no. That's you're you're holding up something. And the liberated spirit doesn't have to hold anything up.
Speaker 2:You know, it doesn't have to hold anything up. It doesn't have to hold up this construct. It does not have to hold up, fear of a conversation. It does not have to hold any it it can sit in it and and be like this is so valuable. The whole experience, that's my whole thing.
Speaker 2:Like, I love being on earth. People like this is a terrible place to be. It's I love it here. Oh. Me too.
Speaker 1:I love it here. It's a miracle.
Speaker 2:I think so. I think so. And so I don't want to run from it. I don't wanna run from any of it. I love it here.
Speaker 2:I don't need I can, but I don't need to, transport myself into another dimension. This is another dimension and it's awesome. Explore the fullness of this dimension. Be here for what you came here to deal with. Be here for what all of this feels like.
Speaker 2:You don't wanna miss what could come if you sat in it and looked at it and loved it for what it was, what it offers to you, the liberation it offers to you to sit in that conversation and be and have your prejudices stripped away and have your fear stripped away and have that that gut, whatever it is that gets tied up in your gut when it comes up, have it untied. Breathe deeper. Feel more connected. Get out of get out of the the prison of white construct that keeps you disconnected from so many people.
Speaker 1:Yes. You're evoking, in me, Adrienne Maree Brown, who's one of my teachers and she talks about water a lot. And I think it was a Bruce Lee quote, but flow like water. Yeah. You know, flow like water.
Speaker 1:Be okay. Water's okay. Water takes the shape of the container it's in. Mhmm. At ease.
Speaker 1:It's at ease. Sometimes you're going over rapids. Mhmm. Sometimes it's still, but it flows. It flows.
Speaker 2:And we're mostly water. Right? That's why that that conversation is always important. And so I I totally agree with that. Be with the rapids if that's where you are.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean? You can't you can't be calm water if you're rapid water. Be rapid water. Be, you know, convulsing water if that's what it is because eventually the rapids that that portion of the waterway passes. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2:But it's a portion that you go through. So go through it, you know. And there are people those people that'd be doing the rapids and on their boats and their rafts doing the rapids, they love that. Right? I love it.
Speaker 2:I'm saying do that. I'm saying do that. Do that in racial confronting yourself racially. Go through the rapids of that. Don't run from it.
Speaker 2:Don't discourage from it, and and also know that it's something you can do and there's a a joy and a power in it for you as a white identified person.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Now this might blow some heads, but where's the joy in racism and talking about racism and talking about race? Where's the joy in it? Because I I find joy
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 1:In this. I do. I find
Speaker 2:this conversation. The joy in it, I think the thing is the joy may be a delayed response. Right? You may get joy a little later. You may get joy a little.
Speaker 2:Don't jump to try to get the joy. The joy comes because you did the work. And after going to the gym for so long, you realize, oh my God, I can lift £60 over my head. No problem. The elation comes from there.
Speaker 2:Be okay with the joy not being immediate. Mhmm. Yeah. And there that's where the joy comes from.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. We got 2 minutes left, Keith. Okay. I would say for those who are inspired and who are sparked, this is no call to action, but to keep keep this train rolling. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Keep it going. Is there a book or someone that you can offer up that has really made a difference for you? You've already given us some. Yeah. What's the next book for someone to pick up?
Speaker 2:So many. I'd go in. Like, I there's so many books I can't even refer to people because I'm like, unless you had read this, you can't get to that. One great book, Afeni Shakur's autobiography or biography. I think Jasmine Guy helped to write it.
Speaker 2:She talks so much. She talks through her pain in a way that, engulfs you. And I feel like it's a I don't necessarily feel like the human spirit has to exist in pain, but it's a great road map to know what it means to go through the fire. What it means to go through the fire, to lose so much in in in the in the hopes of there being a world that is greater than the one you came in to transform a world, but that come but not knowing what it means to look at the the difficulty within yourself, but then having to. I I just it's a it's an awesome great read, easy read, but it it's telling.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I finished the core.
Speaker 1:Well, we're at time. Okay. I give you much, much, much gratitude and thanks and respect. You are a true light in Austin. It might be your back here so far.
Speaker 1:I am just, I can't tell you enough what you're doing for me. I'm bringing it. Yay. Thank you, Kia.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I appreciate you doing it.
Speaker 1:So yeah. If you have any questions or you wanna hear more content like this or you wanna hear from Kia and I again, email roco@coop.org. The roco team roco@coop.org and, we'll try to we'll try to do this again.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I I could go on.
Speaker 1:Alright. So we're gonna we have one more station message and we're gonna go out with, my absolute favorite song of yours, which is Black Girl Payday. Thank y'all. Have a lovely week.
Speaker 6:Independent NewsHour Democracy Now is now on Coop Radio. Host Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez bring you breaking news headlines and in-depth interviews with people on the front lines of the world's most pressing issues. You'll hear a diversity of voices speaking for themselves, providing a unique and sometimes provocative perspective on global events. Listen every Tuesday Thursday from 2 to 3 PM here on Coop at 91.7 FM or streaming at k0op.org.